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PLEASE HELP

monno

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Apr 1, 2021
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I've been looking into incorporating a business for months now and I'm stuck. I'm a citizen and resident of Turkey. I would like to run my small E-commerce business from Turkey after incorporating a company in a country where Stripe and Paypal operates. From what I've read, in order to pass the KYC checks from these companies and make sure I don't get my accounts closed in the future, I need a bank account, utility bill, a local director which can share their passport and address information. I can rent an apartment/office to get a utility bill sent to my address. Considering all of these requests, can someone please let me know where I can get these services and how much they would cost? Is getting a bank account even possible since I'm not an citizen nor a resident of the country I will incorporate in? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
 
there is a ton of payment process providers around the world. if stripe or paypal(braintree) does not work in turkey, find another one. looking to incorporate in another country just because some company from the other side of the world does not support your country is quite stupid. turkey is a big modern country, there must be at least 5 local providers available to you one way or another. usually banks provide api to integrate with their own payment gateways.
 
Yes, there are local providers but most if not all of them are made to cater to Turkey. Most of my customers are from the United States and if I choose a payment processor in Turkey, I know there will be many failed payments and abandoned carts since payment processors in Turkey take you to another website to complete the checkout. I also need Paypal to send money for ads because I work with influencers to promote my business.
 
take you to another website
that is how all checkouts work in europe, it is nothing "exotic" and unless you are a big brand, like amazon, it is preferred by the customers since they can trust a known payment processor/gateway whereas it is hard to trust online store you never used before. but it is true that probably only big payment processors(stripe, braintree...) allow you to save customer's cc details and store only token of the card locally and allow for one-click payments from there on. i would check out local providers, again, see if any of them provide this functionality. i still stand behind what i wrote in my first post but if you insist on incorproating offshore, i would suggest cyprus since it is right next door but it is in EU so braintree, or since last year even stripe, account should be no trouble. you will pay taxes in turkey since you would be controlling the company from there so it is merely a formality with some overhead.

ps: you could still use local payment processor that has api but does not allow you to save CC details. there are services that provide the cc vault functionality so you do not have to concern yourself with PCI-DSS crap and connect it with your payment processor directly.
 
Thank you for the suggestion. There is 2checkout in Turkey but I've heard so many bad things about it that I'm not sure. I think they also take you to their website to checkout but I will look into it again. I've also been looking into incorporating in Cyprus but there isn't a tax treaty between the two countries. I was thinking about Singapore, do you think that would work?
 
you don't have enough money to even think about singapore :D

as for tax treaty..i would theorize that these treaties are to prevent double taxation but since you would pay tax in turkey, since you control the company from there, there should be no tax taking place in cyprus, hence no need for a treaty?
 
I spoke to a company and they said it would be around 3k to register the business and 5k in renewal fees but I'm not sure if it would be possible to open a bank account even though they said it would be.
 
If you are selling mainly to the US, you need a US MID or you will get a heavy decline rate. What you are getting at is that many US card issuing banks block their cards by default for an e-commerce transaction with Turkey. The same applies to anywhere outside the USA, even EU countries or Singapore, though Turkey would be worse. I have a client who does exactly this and he gets a much higher approval rate on US MIDs.

I would suggest you set up an LLC in the USA, with a local nominee, and apply for a US Stripe account or other MIDs. You will need a US bank account of course for settlements and it has to support ACH debits that unfortunately rules out Transferwise etc. You could try Mercury.
 
you don't have enough money to even think about singapore :D

as for tax treaty..i would theorize that these treaties are to prevent double taxation but since you would pay tax in turkey, since you control the company from there, there should be no tax taking place in cyprus, hence no need for a treaty?
Just to clarify, half of Cyprus is occupied by Turkey. So unless the OP intends to incorporate a company in the occupied part then it is not possible for a Turkish citizen to set up in Cyprus.

This is also the main reason why the two countries don't have a tax treaty! Plus the occupied part is not recognized by anyone other than Turkey.
 
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If you are selling mainly to the US, you need a US MID or you will get a heavy decline rate. What you are getting at is that many US card issuing banks block their cards by default for an e-commerce transaction with Turkey. The same applies to anywhere outside the USA, even EU countries or Singapore, though Turkey would be worse. I have a client who does exactly this and he gets a much higher approval rate on US MIDs.

I would suggest you set up an LLC in the USA, with a local nominee, and apply for a US Stripe account or other MIDs. You will need a US bank account of course for settlements and it has to support ACH debits that unfortunately rules out Transferwise etc. You could try Mercury.
Thanks! If I use a local nominee, do you think I can pass the KYC checks for the Stripe account if I can get the nominee's passport and address information? Also, I haven't had any luck finding a service provider that can help with getting a utility bill in case Stripe asks for it. Is there anyone you can recommend for this?
Just to clarify, half of Cyprus is occupied by Turkey. So unless the OP intends to incorporate a company in the occupied part then it is not possible for a Turkish citizen to set up in Cyprus.

This is also the main reason why the two countries don't have a tax treaty! Plus the occupied part is not recognized by anyone other than Turkey.
Yes! I've been thinking about this too since the two countries don't get along well. Can I incorporate in the occupied part and then sign up for Stripe and Paypal under Cyprus?
 
Thanks! If I use a local nominee, do you think I can pass the KYC checks for the Stripe account if I can get the nominee's passport and address information? Also, I haven't had any luck finding a service provider that can help with getting a utility bill in case Stripe asks for it. Is there anyone you can recommend for this?

No, you need to get a serious local nominee in USA with his/her own utility bill who knows the business and will sign up with Stripe for you then grant you admin access. If you just get their passport and address info and try to sign up yourself, that will be immediately red-flagged. There are certainly people who do this within your price range of 3-5K but unfortunately it is strictly prohibited to give names or link or PM invitations on this forum. I wish I could answer your question here but I already got a warning just for posting a link to an article.


Yes! I've been thinking about this too since the two countries don't get along well. Can I incorporate in the occupied part and then sign up for Stripe and Paypal under Cyprus?

Nope, definitely not!!!! That would never work in a million years.
 
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No, you need to get a serious local nominee in USA with his/her own utility bill who knows the business and will sign up with Stripe for you then grant you admin access. If you just get their passport and address info and try to sign up yourself, that will be immediately red-flagged. There are certainly people who do this within your price range of 3-5K but unfortunately it is strictly prohibited to give names or link or PM invitations on this forum. I wish I could answer your question here but I already got a warning just for posting a link to an article.
Thanks I didn't know about that! So if I can find a nominee that would open a Stripe account for me, would I still need a utility bill in addition to that or would their documents be enough? I think I found a nominee that might be able to do that but I still haven't been able to find a service provider for the utility bill and I don't want to phoshop and send a fake bill which might cause trouble later on.
 
If you are selling mainly to the US, you need a US MID or you will get a heavy decline rate. What you are getting at is that many US card issuing banks block their cards by default for an e-commerce transaction with Turkey. The same applies to anywhere outside the USA, even EU countries or Singapore, though Turkey would be worse. I have a client who does exactly this and he gets a much higher approval rate on US MIDs.

I would suggest you set up an LLC in the USA, with a local nominee, and apply for a US Stripe account or other MIDs. You will need a US bank account of course for settlements and it has to support ACH debits that unfortunately rules out Transferwise etc. You could try Mercury.
What is an MID?

Thanks! If I use a local nominee, do you think I can pass the KYC checks for the Stripe account if I can get the nominee's passport and address information? Also, I haven't had any luck finding a service provider that can help with getting a utility bill in case Stripe asks for it. Is there anyone you can recommend for this?

Yes! I've been thinking about this too since the two countries don't get along well. Can I incorporate in the occupied part and then sign up for Stripe and Paypal under Cyprus?
You don't need a nominee director, you need a legitimate director in the US who can actually do all that for you. The issue is a legitimate director is expensive, but if you are making enough money it would be worth your time.
 
A MID is a Merchant ID - like a merchant account forcard acquiring.

Correct, " nominee" is not really the right word. You need a US director, full stop. There are companies that specialize in providing this.
 
If you are selling mainly to the US, you need a US MID or you will get a heavy decline rate. What you are getting at is that many US card issuing banks block their cards by default for an e-commerce transaction with Turkey. The same applies to anywhere outside the USA, even EU countries or Singapore, though Turkey would be worse. I have a client who does exactly this and he gets a much higher approval rate on US MIDs.

I would suggest you set up an LLC in the USA, with a local nominee, and apply for a US Stripe account or other MIDs. You will need a US bank account of course for settlements and it has to support ACH debits that unfortunately rules out Transferwise etc. You could try Mercury.
I got this exact same advise from a payment processing consultant. I have sent up a Delaware LLC with the help of delawareinc.com and applied for a resident agent and FEIN. Next step is I will try to open an account with Mercury. I will also try to get a nominee to open an account with a local bank. How much are nominees paid every month? What exactly is their role other than to open a bank account?
 
How much are nominees paid every month? What exactly is their role other than to open a bank account?
the most important part is, they can sign on behalf of the company.

Anyway, most nominee services from reputable services will only do what you instruct them to do. I think you will have success with Mercury, they are good and take most "normal" business.
 
Thank you @uplana. I talked to Mercury and they are fine with me using the address of my resident agent as the business address. Will they be taxed ?
 
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